Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The intent here is to make sure that water being used on land that a person does not own becomes available for those purposes, and that use should include acquiring or holding, and that is the point of this. Can I just point out too that, under the terms of this clause, when we come to (d) we come to this sentence: ‘that it does not apply to the Commonwealth environmental water holder in relation to the use of Commonwealth water holdings to water water dependent ecosystems’. I have never seen the word ‘water’ used three times out of four words in the one sentence ever in my acquaintance with the English language. I think that might be a record. I note at the start we are referring here to the basin states and I do hope there is a good outcome from this legislation so that we do not have basin state blues further down the line.